Chapter 3. Virtualization
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Draft Document for Review September 2, 2008 5:05 pm
4405ch03 Virtualization.fm
3.4 System Planning Tool
The IBM System Planning Tool (SPT) helps you design a system or systems to be partitioned
with logical partitions. You can also plan for and design non-partitioned systems using the
SPT. The resulting output of your design is called a
system plan
, which is stored in a .sysplan
file. This file can contain plans for a single system or multiple systems. The .sysplan file can
be used:
To create reports
As input to the IBM configuration tool (eConfig)
To create and deploy partitions on your system(s) automatically
The SPT is the next generation of the IBM LPAR Validation Tool (LVT). It contains all the
functions from the LVT, as well as significant functional enhancements, and is integrated with
the IBM Systems Workload Estimator (WLE). System plans generated by the SPT can be
deployed on the system by the Hardware Management Console (HMC) or the Integrated
Virtualization Manager (IVM).
You can create an entirely new system configuration, or you can create a system
configuration based upon any of the following:
Performance data from an existing system that the new system is to replace
Performance estimates that anticipates future workloads that you must support
Sample systems that you can customize to fit your needs
Integration between the SPT and both the Workload Estimator (WLE) and IBM Performance
Management (PM) allows you to create a system that is based upon performance and
capacity data from an existing system or that is based on new workloads that you specify.
You can use the SPT before you order a system to determine what you must order to support
your workload. You can also use the SPT to determine how you can partition a system that
you already have.
The SPT is a PC-based browser application designed to be run in a standalone environment.
The SPT can be used to plan solutions for the following IBM systems:
IBM Power Systems
System p5 and System i5™
eServer p5 and eServer i5
OpenPower®
iSeries® 8xx and 270 models
We recommend that you use the IBM System Planning Tool to estimate POWER Hypervisor
requirements and determine the memory resources that are required for all partitioned and
non-partitioned servers.
Figure 3-6 on page 92 shows the estimated Hypervisor memory requirements based on
sample partition requirements.
Note:
Ask your IBM Representative or Business Partner to use the Customer Specified
Placement manufacturing option if you want to automatically deploy your partitioning
environment on an new machine. SPT looks for the resource’s allocation to be the same as
the specified on your .sysplan file.